So much for the possibility of our Royals winning a series, as the Rays cruised to a 7-2 win Sunday afternoon.

Amazingly, the game featured 16 strikeouts, proving a kind of bizarre reverse to the oft-quoted "good pitching beats good hitting" dictum. In this game, bad pitching beat bad hitting: the Royals and Rays are the two worst strikeout-staffs in baseball, yet against one another, their hacktastic lineups could only flail away. In a way, the game was awesome in this respect.

Beyond that, the depressing non-goodness of Denny Bautista continues. Starts: 2; ERA: 11.85. Bautista allowed 11 hits in just 5.2 innings, good for 6 runs. Getting Bautista for the decaying remains of Jason Grimsley has been seen as one of Allard's best moves, yet at the moment Bautista's minor-league success this season hasn't translated. Ohh well... lowered expectations are really nothing new.